In the backdrop of tensions between Indian and Chinese troops at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said that “no one can dare to stare at India with a crooked eye.”

“We will dedicate our lives to this nation. We will make this nation happy, prosperous and powerful so that no one can look at our country with a crooked eye,” said the Union Road Minister speaking at Jan Samvad, a virtual rally organised by the BJP yesterday.

Stating that during the Narendra Modi government regime, Maoism and terrorism have declined, Gadkari took a dig at the UPA government saying earlier governments appeased terrorists. He also hailed PM Modi for this hawkish policy.

Targeting the Congress, Gadkari spoke about the Batla House encounter. “The Congress leaders went to the house of terrorists killed to console them. But they didn’t go to martyred soldiers’ houses,” he said.

He further said the Modi government decided to check the surplus water from flowing to Pakistan. “After partition, India and Pakistan got three rivers each. Our water was flowing to Pakistan as there was no consensus among our states,” he said.

“We did whatever we promised,” Union minister Nitin Gadkari said while mentioning the abrogation of Article 370 and the Ram temple verdict.

Making a pitch for self-reliant India, he highlighted his ministry’s achievements, like highways and e-driving licence.

On the first Prime Minister, the BJP said that Jawaharlal Nehru had “Russian influence” on him.

Earlier in May, as tensions soared between India and China at LAC, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that “no one can threaten Narendra Modi’s India”.

On being asked about the face-off at the Line of Actual Control, he gave a one-liner reply: “No one can dare to stare at Modi’s India.”

Prasad’s reply on the border tension came a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered the military to scale up the battle preparedness, visualising the worst-case scenarios and asked them to resolutely defend the country’s sovereignty.

Several areas along the LAC in Ladakh and North Sikkim have witnessed major military build-up by both the Indian and Chinese armies recently, in a clear signal of escalating tension and hardening of respective positions by the two sides even two weeks after they were engaged in two separate face-offs.

The nearly 3,500-km-long LAC is the de-facto border between the two countries.

Indian and Chinese troops have remained engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation in several areas along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, signalling that the standoff could become the biggest military face-off after the Doklam crisis in 2017.